Repair, Reuse, Restore, Reduce, Recycle | Retro Active Lifestyle

How To and NOT To Repair an Insta360 One X

Richard — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:00:00 +0000

In the Spring of 2019, I bought two Insta360 One X cameras with a singular purpose in mind: To ride, review, and document bike paths around the country. It turned out to be an overly ambitious endeavor for my limited skill set and resources, so the project was placed on the back burner.

My two Insta360 One X cameras, however, were not. They saw significant action over the next five years. I often mounted a GoPro to my bike. Even with its wide-angle lens, however, I still had to point it at whatever I wanted to capture. That meant that it often missed things that would happen around me when I was riding. More often, I missed things because I simply wasn’t recording, so naturally, that’s when things happen. Bonnie and I joke that the best way to make sure nothing exciting happens is to hit record.

The ability to record in all directions simultaneously made the Insta360 One X perfect for bike rides. The one thing I didn’t like about it, though, was that, mounted to my handlebar, it recorded me from a very low angle, which is never a good look. When used with the Insta360 selfie stick, however, it brought the camera up to the level of my face for a more natural image.

Mounting it to the bike was a challenge, though, or at least I made it a challenge. For some reason, I had the idea to weld a 1/4 – 20 screw to my bike frame. Then, I screwed the selfie stick straight onto it. It worked well enough until it didn’t. Without warning, the screw broke off, sending the Insa360 One X crashing to the ground. One lens was badly scratched on the hard concrete just a few months after I bought it.

There Were No DIY Insta360 One X Repairs Back in 2019

Back then, parts for Insta360 cameras were non-existent, so I had little choice but to send it out for repair. With shipping, it was about half the price of buying a new Insta360 One X to have the lens replaced. I wasn’t happy, but I learned a lesson.

I’m An Insta360’s Worst Nightmare

Unfortunately, I still had other lessons to learn. I generally only used one camera at a time, and I liked to use it with a selfie stick. It doesn’t fit easily into a pocket, but I found a clever way to carry it when I wasn’t recording. My pants had hammer loops on each leg. I know a lot of people don’t like hammer loops, but I do. When I was a carpet cleaner, I found them invaluable. I always had a towel tucked into one of them, and they were great for hanging spray bottles.

They were also a great place to tuck an Insta360 One X on a selfie stick. Not all hammer loops are equal, though, and I discovered the hard way twice that some are bigger than others. I had one of my cameras tucked into my hammer loop as I walked with my family to the park. It was in its protective pouch, but it slipped right out of both the pouch and the loop.

The damage was far less significant than the last time, but one of the lenses was still scratched. Incredibly, I didn’t learn my lesson, and the same thing happened a short time later. I guess it took me two times to learn that lesson, but I still had one more lesson to learn.

The Big One

Bonnie and I were running to catch a bus. We were going to miss it if we didn’t hurry. My Insta360 One X was tucked into a pocket on the shoulder strap of my backpack because I had discovered that I could record from the forward-facing lens when I was out in public, and no one seemed to notice and, therefore, were not bothered by the camera.

It worked fine when I was walking, but running jostled it too much, and it was ejected onto the sidewalk, where it bounced, flipped, and skidded along the concrete driveway outside the QuikStop. This was by far the most violent and destructive drop yet. Now, both of my Insta360 One Xs were damaged.

To Fix or Not To Fix?

In another time, I might have just bought a new 360º camera, but this was in the middle of the COVID pandemic, and nobody was coming out with new cameras. GoPro, DJI, Canon, Nikon, and Sony were all stuck in a pre-COVID freeze frame. The newest Insta360 camera I could buy was two years old. I figured new models would be released once all of this pandemic nonsense was over, but who knew when that was going to be? I saw a YouTube video that showed how to fix a crack in an Insta360 One X lens using epoxy, so I tried it, but it didn’t work.

Finally DIY Insta360 One X Repair Is Possible

So, I did some research and discovered that lenses were now available, and for significantly less than the last time I sent one of these out for repair and for a fraction of the cost of a new camera, so I ordered four new lenses from eBay for about $25 each.

I was hesitant to dive into this repair, but once I got the first camera open, it was much less daunting. Getting the camera open took some figuring out, but it wasn’t hard.

How To Replace the lens in an Insta360 One X

Remove the Plastic Insert From the Top of the Insta360 One X
Using a knife or other flat object, pry this plastic insert out of the top of the camera to expose the two screws underneath.
Remove the Two Screws
Remove the two screws in the top of the camera.
Remove the Plastic Insert From the Side
Just like in step one, use a knife or other flat object to pry the insert from the USB port on the side of the camera.
Remove Screw
Remove the screw next to the USB port on the side of the camera.
Remove Screw From Battery Compartment
Open the door to the battery compartment and remove one screw from the latch side.
Remove 4 Screws From the Bottom of the Camera
Remove the four screws holding the plastic insert to the bottom of the camera.
Split Camera Body Apart
The camera comes apart with a little brute force, with all eight screws removed. The trick is to slide something thin and firm in between the two halves of the case to pry them apart. I used the blade of my pocket knife. It was difficult at first, but once I got it started, it came right apart.
Remove the Plastic Ring From Around The Lens
Slide the blade of a knife under the lip of the plastic ring and pry it up.
Remove the Old Lens
The biggest challenge for me was getting the old lens out. I had no idea how it went in and no idea how to get it out. I tried everything I could think of to pry it loose: my pocket knife, the plastic tools that come with a replacement MacBook screen, pliers, and channel locks, but a wood carving chisel ended up being the perfect tool for the job. It worked like it was made for removing lenses.

While applying downward pressure on the edge of the lens with the tip of the chisel, I used the thumb on my opposite hand to apply lateral pressure to the back of the chisel to force the lens out of its seat.
Remove the Lens From The Other Side
One lens can be removed without removing the lens module, but to remove the other lens, the module has to come out. It’s really easy to remove. There are just four screws.
Disconnect Ribbon Cables
To remove the ribbon cables, simply pry up the connectors. I used a plastic tool to avoid damaging the circuitry.
Remove The Lens Module
With the four screws removed and the two ribbon cables disconnected, the lens module will lift free.
Remove The Second Lens
Remove the second lens the same way as the first, but be very careful of the ribbon cables. I got a little too comfortable and, consequently, a bit reckless, and I ended up damaging one of the ribbon cables.
If You Damage A Ribbon Cable
There was no obvious damage to the lens module other than one of the ribbon cables being slightly kinked, but it was enough to prevent the camera from working. It would power on but then freeze. Pushing either button did nothing. All I could do to get off of the frozen screen was to pull the battery out or hold down the power button for a very long time.
I put the lens module in the other camera with the same results, so I was certain the problem was with the lens module and not the camera. The good lens module worked perfectly in the camera from which the bad lens module came, so I was doubly certain.
A New Problem
With all four lenses replaced, I had a new problem. One of the lenses in the good module was blurry.

I figured some dust got underneath the lens when I put the new one in, so I took it apart and cleaned it, but it didn’t help. So, I took it apart again, but this time, I used a 10x jeweler’s loup to make sure everything was clean when I put it back together.

I found some spots on the inner lens, and I was sure that’s what was causing the blurriness.

I cleaned them off, but it was still blurry. I took the lens apart and cleaned it five times, but the blurriness never improved. I even took the whole lens module apart to see if there was something wrong with the sensor, but there was no obvious problem that I could detect.
Putting The Camera Back Together
I decided at this point that I would rather have one working camera than 1 1/2 non-working cameras, so I took both modules apart and then put them back together, but I joined the blurry lens and the lens with the bad ribbon cable, and then I paired up the two good lenses.

So, now I have one working camera and one non-working camera, and I’m okay with that… for now.

One day, I might replace the bad lens module, but I think I would rather spend that money on a camera made in this decade.

You can watch a video of the whole process here:

The post How To and NOT To Repair an Insta360 One X appeared first on Retro Active Lifestyle.

Retro Dining Chairs – Like New In 6 Easy Steps

Richard — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 15:00:00 +0000

We made a video of this whole process in case you learn better by watching than reading.

These retro dining chairs sure saw some action in the 15 years since we bought them. No one could argue that we didn’t get our money’s worth from them. Still, we weren’t ready to part with them just yet, so we decided to give them a new life. It wasn’t as difficult as I feared it might be, and the results are stunning.

This isn’t really a beginner sort of upholstery project, though, so if you’ve never sewed before, you may want to start with a more straightforward project before diving into this style of retro dining chairs.

How To Recover Retro Dining Chairs

Dismantle Your Retro Dining Chairs
Start by removing the cushions from the frame. There are four screws in the back and 4 in the seat on these chairs, but your chairs may be different.
Remove the eight screws holding the cushions to the frame.

You will need the screws later, so put them someplace safe.

Put the screws someplace where they won’t get lost.

Next, remove all of the staples holding the vinyl to the base. It’s tedious but necessary. A screwdriver and pliers are all you need to get out all the staples.
Remove staples with a flat screwdriver and pliers.
Separate Your Old Retro Dining Chair Vinyl Pieces
Separate the vinyl pieces to use them as templates for the new vinyl. Work your way around the piece cutting the thread with scissors or a seam ripper. But be careful because vinyl is thick, and so is the upholstery thread used to stitch it together. Bonnie broke all of her seam rippers taking apart these chairs, so be careful.
Cut the thread along each seam, with scissors or a seam ripper.

You’ll reuse the welting, so set it aside for now.
Save this welting cord to reuse
Make Templates For Your New Vinyl Pieces
Start by laying each piece out on butcher paper and trace around the outside.

Make notes about the size, orientation, and cuts because things can get confusing when we transfer our templates to the new vinyl later. When tracing the old pieces, make the template slightly bigger than the material to allow for movement in the vinyl after the chair is reassembled.
Trace around each of your vinyl pieces onto a piece of paper.

The old boxing and welting material is too deformed to trace accurately, so use it only as a guideline.
The old welting and boxing material is too deformed to trace accurately.

You can use them to get the length you need and the approximate width, but don’t try to trace them onto the paper.
Use the old boxing and welting as a guideline for the length and width only. Don’t try to trace it.
Cut Out Your Retro Dining Chair Templates.

Now you can lay out your patterns. Roll out the new vinyl and trace your templates with a charcoal pencil.

Alternatively, you can trace the old vinyl pieces directly. When you finish tracing your templates cut out your new vinyl pieces.
Trace your paper template onto your new vinyl.
Sewing The Front Seat Back Panel
Staple the foam to the front seatback panel. This will hold it in place as you pass the panel through the machine.
Staple the foam insert to the vinyl.

Follow along the lines in the foam.
Sew along the lines in the foam.

This will create straight lines down the front of the panel, which is part of the style and charm of retro dining chairs, so it’s essential to get this part right. The vertical stitching will keep the material tight to the chair’s back. Without it, there would be a gap between the foam and the vinyl, and it would puff out.
Follow the lines in the foam to create these lines in the seat back.

Repeat the process for all of the stitching lines. Now remove the staples. Next, sew the welting. Start by wrapping the cord with the vinyl and pinning it with a couple of pins towards the end.
Insert a pin into the vinyl welting and seat panel to hold it together while sewing together.

You’re sewing everything inside out, so lay your pieces out accordingly. When you attach the back panel, the welting will be folded over, so pin it with the open side facing out.
Layout and pin your panels inside out.

Be careful as you sew the welting to the front panel because you don’t want to sew the edge of the foam to the vinyl. Pin it only with a couple of pins at this point because the welting must stretch as you go around the corners.

Go slow and make sure everything stays lined up and the piping stays inside.
Sew the welting to the seatback panel.
Sewing The Back Seat Back Panel
Pin the back panel at the bottom two corners and the center of the top seam. As you sew around the edge, these pins keep the back panel from moving off-center. The hard part here is staying straight as you move down the seam. The welting makes a little ridge that creates a balancing act. If you fall off the edge, the seam won’t be straight. It’s ok, though, because all of this stitching is hidden when your retro dining chairs are finished.

Now go around the whole thing again, following the welting to tighten your seam. Make minor cuts in the vinyl along the curved portions without cutting into the stitching. This makes the material more flexible when it’s turned right side out. Set this vinyl aside for now.
Sewing The Seat
Sew boxing to seat panel.

Because you can’t hide the box seam, you want to make it as even as possible at the back of the panel. Then go all the way around and attach the ends in the middle. Sometimes the way you cut out the material causes the piece to stretch more to one side than the other, and so you end up with more welting material at one end than the other, so make sure the cord does not come all the way to the end of the vinyl. And just like before, we pin the welting with the opening facing out.

Overlap the two ends of the welting, and start the locking stitch about an inch and a half from the end. Line up the edges of the pieces and then move along the edge of the cord. Move slowly, keeping everything lined up edge to edge as you go. Before you get to the end, cut away the excess cord.
Cut the excess welting cord before you finish sewing.

Fold one end of the welting into itself and lay the other end on top. Then staple the seam to hold it together while you sew it.
Fold the ends of the welting and overlap the two ends onto each other.

Don’t stitch the end of the boxing. Fold it over as you did with the welting. Now fold over one end of the boxing and staple it. Lay the other end over the folded end and pin it. Finish the seam, remove the pin, and go around the whole thing again to tighten the seam.
Fold the end of the seat boxing over and staple it.
Covering The Cushions
Use scissors to make cuts in the corners.
The cuts will make the vinyl easier to bend when you turn it right side out.

Working in small sections, staple the vinyl to the seat bottom of your retro dining chair. Pull the material tight from the other side and staple it. Working your way around the whole seat, pull and staple until there is no slack left.
Fold the seat panel over the base, pulling it tight and stapling it in place.

Then cut out the excess material and tack down the loose bits.
Cut out the excess material.

Same idea with the seatback. Pull the back panel tight and staple it down.
Staple the vinyl to the bottom of the seat back.

Then cut out the excess material from the back panel, fold over the front panel, and staple it over the edge of the back panel.
Cut out the excess material.
Clean the Chair Frames

You could re-chrome the chair frames if you wanted to make them brand new again. But you will have to outsource if you don’t have the equipment required. Or, you can just clean the rust off of them. Most of the rust is on the surface anyway, and so it is easily removed.

I used Bar Keepers Friend and a wet sponge to scrub the rust off of our retro dining chairs. Gently scrub chair frames with Bar Keepers Friend.
Rinse off the Bar Keepers friend.

After a rinse, I used Never Dull to remove rust and polish the chrome. Then I wiped the whole thing down with a clean towel. This process removes most of the rust, but it doesn’t get all. You could remove it all if you wanted to spend the time, but this will all be covered anyway.

Be careful with the Bar Keepers Friend. It is abrasive and it can remove the chrome plating.
Wipe the whole frame down with Never Dull.
Put Your Retro Dining Chairs Back Together

The seat is straightforward. It just has the four screws, but the back is a little more complicated though, but I have a trick to find the screw holes through the vinyl. To find the indentations from the chair cushion, feel along them until you find the four puckered screw holes.

So now that you’ve found the first screw hole, You can use an awl or an ice pick to poke a hole in the vinyl over the screw hole. Repeat this process on one hole on the opposite side. Now start the first screw but don’t tighten it down all the way.

Insert the second screw and tighten it down. Move back to the first screw and tighten it down all the way.

Now use the icepick to easily start the other two holes and install the two screws.
Feel the indentations in the foam to find the old screw holes.

.

That’s it. Your retro dining chairs are finished and ready for use! If you have any questions about any part of this process, please leave them in the comments, and we’ll do our best to answer them. You can also watch this whole process in the video below.

And now that you have beautiful brand-new retro dining chairs, be sure to check out our post about how to clean your vinyl chairs to keep them looking beautiful.

The post Retro Dining Chairs – Like New In 6 Easy Steps appeared first on Retro Active Lifestyle.

How To Replace Mavic Air Arm: Easy DIY Guide

Richard — Thu, 10 Dec 2020 01:00:24 +0000

My DJI Mavic Air recently fell out of the sky quite unexpectedly. Its tumble to Earth left the left-rear motor smooshed and deformed and wouldn’t spin freely anymore. I didn’t even think to replace the whole arm on my Mavic Air initially.

At first, I tried to see if I could simply replace the motor but a quick search led me to a replacement arm for $27, (though it’s now up to $52.) I decided to replace the Mavic Air arm because besides the motor being damaged the arm was a little crunched from the fall and the landing pad was missing.

When the arm arrived I examined it and saw that it just had three wires coming out of the end of the arm, so I knew that I was going to have to solder them to something inside. Easy enough, so I jumped right in and started tearing down the drone.

How to Replace Mavic Air Arm

Remove The Upper Shell Cover
The first step in replacing the arm on my DJI Mavic Air was to remove the upper shell cover. Mine is red because Amazon was selling it for $70 less than the black or white ones.

It pops off easily by sliding a screwdriver under the edge of the plastic and gently prying it up.
Remove The Decoration Plate
Underneath the upper shell cover is a smaller plastic cover called the decoration plate. This one was a little harder to take off because it’s held down with double-sided tape but it is very resilient and it came off with a bit more effort than the outer shell. I slid the blade of my pocket knife under the edge of the plastic, gently prying it up as I worked my way around the plate.
Remove Upper Shell Screws
With both covers off I had access to all of the screws holding the top case to the chassis. There was one screw covered with a sticker that I had to peel back to get to. I assume that’s there so that if I were to make a warranty claim after I fucked up this repair DJI could tell that I’ve been messing about inside my drone. But the warranty period is well over by now, so it’s fine.

The screws that hold the arm to the chassis, however, are always accessible without tearing the aircraft down. There is one on the top side of the arm and one on the bottom side.
Remove Circuit Board Screws
The main circuit board has almost as many screws as the case does. I had to remove them all to get to the motor wires. Then I had to disconnect four cables from the mainboard. They just snap into place, so I was able to pry them loose with the tip of my knife.
DeSolder The Motor Wires
This step to replace the Mavic Air arm would be so much easier if it wasn’t for the white blob of glue encasing the solder joints. I had to remove it to desolder the wires. I tried scraping it off with a knife blade, but it didn’t work.

So I tried heating it with the soldering iron, which helped a little but also smelled bad. It didn’t, however, work well enough to be worth the smell.

Ultimately I used a 1/4″ chisel to scrape enough of the glue off to get to the wires. I have no doubt that there is a better way to get the glue off, but I don’t know what that way is. Nobody would recommend doing what I did, including myself, but it’s done now, and it worked, and I was able to desolder the three wires and remove the arm.
Solder The New Motor Wires
From here on out, the process was the reverse of everything I just did to replace the Mavic Air arm. I soldered the three motor wires to the board. Each terminal on the board was labeled for the wires so I didn’t have to guess where each wire went. The only problem was that they labeled the red wire terminal with “G” instead of “R,” but the black and white terminals were labeled properly so it wasn’t a problem.
Replace The Glue
I didn’t have any of the white glue that I scraped off before, and I didn’t even know what it was anyway. I did, however, have a glue gun, and since the interior of the Mavic doesn’t get anywhere near the melting point of the hot glue, I figured it would be safe. So, I put a blob of hot glue over the solder joints.
Replace All Of The Screws
Once the glue cooled, I laid the board back down and snapped the cables back into place. Then I replaced all of the screws in the board and in the case.

Getting the SD slot door in properly was a little tricky. It has two metal tabs that need to line up with two plastic strips in the chassis. After a couple of attempts, I was able to get it in there.
Replace The Outer Shells
I snapped both the decoration plate and the red shell back onto the aircraft. The double-sided tape was still sticky enough to hold the decoration plate down tight.
Test It Out
I turned the aircraft on, and it powered up like normal. So then I took it outside for a test flight. It worked like new again!

That is how to replace a Mavic Air arm. Or at least that’s how I did it. I probably didn’t do everything the “right way,” but it works, and you can’t argue with results.

I have had no issues after many hours of flight time on the new arm. So, I am confident that the repair was legit.

I was a bit surprised at just how serviceable the Mavic Air is. I would have expected it to be more difficult to do a DIY repair on it, like an iPhone. I always prefer repairing to replacing, especially when we’re talking about things that cost as much as a Mavic Air.

I made a video of the repair. You can watch it down below.

The post How To Replace Mavic Air Arm: Easy DIY Guide appeared first on Retro Active Lifestyle.

Book With An Old Broken Binding Gets New Life

Richard — Wed, 28 Oct 2020 00:00:56 +0000

I don’t know the history of this book or even how we came to own it. The only thing I know about the book is that Bonnie’s niece borrowed it once. Then the little tart returned it in this sorry state. It wasn’t in mint condition when she took it but for fucks sake… So it’s sat on our shelves for years and years. I’ve largely avoided it until now to avoid making it any worse than it already is. Plus I had a slew of other books to read making this sad, old, broken one less of a priority.

Why Did I Have So Many Other Books To Read?

About 10 years ago we discovered the marvelous and exciting world of estate sales. We would spend every weekend in strange houses slowly pursuing the effects of the dead. It’s really quite thrilling actually, to be some of the last people to see the way a total stranger lived before their house is flipped and their remaining possessions unceremoniously discarded.

I always found it interesting to see how many people moved into homes in the 1960s and 1970s, decorated them with the latest styles, and then never touched them again. 50 years later the house is a time capsule save for the odd room with boring beige carpet installed after a flood in the 80s or 90s. It’s such an interesting thing to me; to make home decor such a priority and then never revisit it again until the day you die.

Anyway, estate sales are replete with books. Very often you can find the old classics which I never read. I was a terrible student in school and I never read the required reading. I skimmed the book, bought the Clifsnotes at the last minute and B.S.’d my way throght the test. Judge me if you will bit it worked for me. No, that’s total bullshit, it didn’t work for me at all. But now that I’m older I really want to fill in that part of my education. So when I would find an old classic at an estate sale I would buy it. After a few years I had quite a collection of books sitting on the shelf in my closet and everytime I would add another I would say, someday I’m going to get around to reading all these.

Someday

That “someday” was in early 2018. And I swore that I would not buy, or even read another book that did not come from that shelf. One-by-one I would pull a book off the shelf, read it and throw it away. Not really. I would actually put it in our little library. (We have a little library in our front yard.)

Slowly, over the next couple of years, I would make my way through the pile. Some of the books were quite good. I particularly liked To Kill A Mockingbird, Never Let Me Go, and Great Expectations but everything else that Dickens did was total shit. I read a book by Jules Vern called The Mysterious Island. It was so fucking weird that if they made it into a film it would be an instant cult classic. But generally, I think that most of the so-called “classics” are just awful.

My Misadventure with Huckleberry Finn

One of the few books I actually read in high school was The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin. I liked the book so much that I didn’t return it at the end of the year. I kept it, always planning to read it again someday. For over 20 years I held onto that book and the memory of how much I enjoyed it. When I finally revisited Huck and Jim I realized what a miserable piece of shit that book is.

First of all, it’s like trying to read a foreign language. Or actually, it’s more like trying to talk to a customer who speaks very poor English. You need to know what they’re trying to tell you so you’re concentrating really, really hard to make out their words. It’s just so hard to understand what they’re saying but you can’t just smile and nod and walk away because you have a job to do. He wrote the whole book that way. I’m not sure what was worse, the southern accents or the books ending. I think Twain spent so much time and energy writing this book in some kind of code that he ran out and had to phone in the ending.

A Quarantine Book List Deserving of A Global Pandemic

My quarantine reading list was almost as bad. I started out with Moby Dick. (Does a worse book exist?) I could have tolerated, and even really got into it if it wasn’t for the highly erroneous cetology lessons in every other fucking chapter. Then I moved into The Illiad, The Odyssey, Don Quixote, As You Like It, Macbeth, and The Canterbury Tales. By August I had had all of the “wherefore’s” and “hither’s” and “thou’s” that I could take. I needed a break from antiquity; I needed something written by someone who lived in my lifetime and the only book left on the shelf that fit the bill was the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. It was a welcomed change of pace. Of course it hit me differently now, than when I read it 20 years ago. This time it just reminded me of how much I hate drug people.

Now That You’re Up To Speed…

But after the acid test, there was just one book left on the shelf. This poor beat up and broken old book. It’s by Edgar Allen Poe. I knew it wouldn’t make it through a reading so it was going to have to be fixed. Recently, I happened to come across an old suede skirt that would be the perfect material to mend the binding. I cut it to size and used Titebond Quick & Thick Multi-Surface Glue to adhere the leather to the book cover. Now it’s as good as new, except for the story that is. The Story is shit. It seems to be little more than Poe’s stream of consciousness about god knows what. It’s just one-half step above listening to someone recall the dream they had last night.

So I guess the point I’m trying to make is that I spent a little bit of time and effort to fix a shitty book before I read it and knew that it was shitty. And also that most broken books probably aren’t worth saving. You can watch a video of it down below.

https://youtu.be/aDibiSoqWB8

The post Book With An Old Broken Binding Gets New Life appeared first on Retro Active Lifestyle.